Of Shibboleths and Sealing Wax, of Cabbages and Kings

You’re wandering through the internets, along the twisty Twitters and amongst the driftwood that Facebook occasionally washes up for your inspection, or maybe it’s the Google Plus profile (does that still exist?) of some rando — and you come across an essay.

It’s something “longform,” and from its title and the first few paragraphs you think, “this sounds relevant to me, this could be interesting.” Maybe it even has a home-brewed figure or two, it looks almost professional.

But life is short: should you read it? Is it worth the quarter-of-an-hour that you’ll never get back? Your Saturday afternoon now consists of this or stream another episode of 30 Rock, one that you’ve already watched two dozen times: what’s it gonna be?

For me, and when it’s writing about technology or startups, I have an internal list of buzzwords. If I quickly scan through the piece and find one of those hot-button phrases used casually, or in an attempt to give a veneer of sophistication without worry about accuracy, I simply close the tab and fire up Netflix.

Which brings me to: “How to Hire.”

And today’s buzzword: “power law.”

Much like startup performance follows a power law, so do startup employees. The most effective employees create 20x more leverage than an average employee. This is not true in an efficiency company — the best employees might work 2x faster than their peers. But in a high-leverage startup like ours, the effectiveness gap between employees can be multiple orders of magnitude.

Our minds find it easier to think in terms of efficiency and normal distributions than leverage and power law distributions. So we mentally squash the employee power law curve into a normal distribution curve. We underestimate the most effective employees and overestimate the ineffective ones.

Argh.

1. There’s no evidence given here, of a power law. Being able to talk about “20x” and “2x” employees (even if such things existed) isn’t evidence of a power law. Words have meanings, guy.
2. Even if you think you have evidence for a power law, you probably don’t. Power laws are usually used as evidence for microscopic-but-interesting dynamics in complex systems, the bar for invoking them is (rightfully) high.
3. Even if you had a “power law” here, what does it buy you?
4. “Efficiency” and “normal distributions” are complete non sequiturs.

I read the whole piece, but you know what? I shouldn’t have. The “power law” paragraphs should have tipped me off. I should’ve cared more about false positives than false negatives.

But you — it’s not too late for you.